03/05/2026
*A DAUGHTER’S STORY (1)*
*By* *Chukwuneta Oby*
This was a message a lady sent me a few months ago:
“When my mother started hearing voices in her head, she began going from one Church to another. We didn’t understand what was happening to her. She also became increasingly difficult to live with.
When I couldn’t reach my mother on the phone, I would visit her, only to find her in total darkness in the house, with her phone ringing beside her, but she wouldn’t pick it up.
Her reason was often, ‘They are using the phone to monitor me. But when I am hiding in a dark room, they won’t see me.’
My mother once called a meeting of our kindred and accused her husband (my father) of being an occult man who was trying to use her for rituals. That accusation must have broken something in my father because he moved far away from her.
When I try to recall how all this started, one thing I can point to is that the earliest sign was her penchant for going from one Church to another. That was how my mother’s issue worsened.
I was already married when all this was happening. I owe my husband so much gratitude, and even an apology, because my mother’s issue did not give me peace of mind at all. I had one leg at her house and the other in my matrimonial home.
Sometimes, I would visit her, and my mother would ask me what I had come to do, then add, ‘Have they sent you to come and monitor me?’
It broke my heart to see how fast my once-respected civil servant mother was declining mentally. I would lie on the floor and start crying. But whatever was happening to her did not kill her motherly instinct.
When she saw me in that sorrowful condition, she would try to lift me off the floor, place my head on her bosom, and say, ‘Don’t cry for them. I will conquer, and they won’t touch you again.’
For a very long time, I thought my mother was just being difficult because she was being indoctrinated by the Churches she attended. It was only when I came across internet articles on mental health issues that I realised what my mother was grappling with.
I consulted a mental health practitioner, and he confirmed it, advising me to bring her in for a professional evaluation. I thought about how my dear mother would be bundled out of the house in a distressing manner, and my heart could not take it.
I resorted to having a professional go to the house to administer some medications to her, but when my mother complained that the medications made her unwell, I stopped him. All these were mistakes I made in handling my mother’s case. I was pandering to my emotions, trying to preserve her dignity. But it was not dignity that greeted her end.
I called her several times one day and couldn’t get through. I called a neighbour and appealed to her to check on my mother. I was already pregnant.
Less than ten minutes later, the neighbour called me back and simply said, ‘Start coming over now,’ then disconnected. I knew immediately that something had gone terribly wrong.
I got to my mother’s house, peeped through the window, and found her lying face down on the floor. I got someone to break the lock so we could enter. It turned out that my mother had been dead for a day or two. The malaria medications I found on her bed showed that she had been unwell and had bought some drugs.
In fact, rats would have started feasting on her remains if God had not placed it on my heart to check on her that very day.
I still regret not forcing my mother to my house (where she would be under my watch), even if it meant chaining her to a spot in the house. At least she would have been alive for me.
Words cannot express how much I miss and grieve over her, even with all the stress of her condition.”
From Oby…
It’s not every disturbing behaviour of a spouse that comes from a bad or troublesome heart. You could have someone grappling with a sickness of the mind in your care.
The voices that some people claim they hear in their heads are not a “spiritual attack”; they are often the beginning of a mental health challenge. And once a mental health issue is given a spiritual connotation, it can further destabilise someone’s sanity.
*©️ Punchng.com*
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